


All Too Well

by loyaltybindshim



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Break Up, F/M, M/M, Medici - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaltybindshim/pseuds/loyaltybindshim
Summary: For the record, when Francesco Pazzi said—“I never thought I’d like someone like you”—to Simonetta, she was thinking the same thing about him.Inspired by MARKANTONY'S tags: #anyway clearly simonetta and francesco needed to band together to start an 'i fell in love with a medici' support group
Relationships: Giuliano de' Medici/Simonetta Vespucci, Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" de' Medici/Francesco de' Pazzi, Marco Vespucci/Simonetta Vespucci
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	All Too Well

_And I confess / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again with you / And I almost do_

__

For the record, when Francesco Pazzi said—“I never thought I’d like someone like you”—to Simonetta, she was thinking the same thing about him.

It was serendipity that brought them together. Tragic serendipity, albeit. Francesco had loved and lost Lorenzo de Medici, and Simonetta had loved and lost Lorenzo’s brother, Giuliano. The funny thing was, they were both the type of people who were meant to hate the Medici family—hate them for other reasons, not for trampling over the hearts they’d reluctantly given them.

Simonetta Vespucci was no ray of sunshine, and thinking that was Francesco’s first mistake (it was the blonde hair, okay?). He’d seen her a handful of times at charity functions, soirees his arm had been bent to attend, and then at Medici gatherings. Holiday parties, weddings, baby showers. It wasn’t exactly clear, at the time, why she was there. Simonetta was a monolith: she walked, and existed, happily alone. She was married, and the Vespuccis were far from being fans of the Medici family, so while Francesco was proudly worn on Lorenzo’s arm, Simonetta and Giuliano were entangled in a secret, sordid love affair.  


The first time he’d seen her—really seen her, beyond in passing or through the lens of society tabloids—was the night she decided to end things with Giuliano. He didn’t know, because she wouldn’t share the details, but he could assume it ended badly. He broke up with Lorenzo the week after. They were both a mess. He took her out, they did shots and spilled whiskey and secrets all over the lacquered bar top, which for them, was excruciating.  


They met for coffee that same week, both nursing a hangover and a broken heart. (Did it hurt worse to admit that his heart was broken, or to simply be heartbroken?)  


Francesco met her family, by pure happenstance, two weeks later at a local market. She swallowed her pride and met her husband’s glowers with deference. (Did it hurt worse to fail, or to admit to him that she had?)  


They saw each other regularly after that. Point being: they were friends, and their friendship was a shot out of the blue for everyone who knew them.  


He finds out that Simonetta has unparalleled restraint. She won’t drink a drop if she’s driving. She won’t take more than two bites out of her morning croissant. She won’t lash out against her husband when he makes his fifth snide comment that morning (they’d agreed to sweep the affair under the rug, but his pride was evidently still sore.) But she has absolutely no restraint when it comes to Giuliano de Medici, and Francesco has to tie her hands behind her back to get her from marching over to his flat right. this. second.  


She finds out that Francesco is more insecure than his nerves of steel let on. When they see Lorenzo in the city one morning, dapper as ever, he tugs her into a café and says that he can’t let him see them. Why? He replies, as if it is evident, look at me—I’m a fucking mess. She’s forgotten that being with a Medici means keeping up constant appearance (it is one part of her relationship that she is keen to leave in the past.) She feels sorry for him, then, as the city reflects in his eyes from the window.  


Lorenzo walks in and out of the café, orders an Americano, without noticing either of them.  


He receives a package from Lorenzo three months after they’ve broken up. His scarf—gray, last seen tucked away in one of the drawers Lorenzo had carved out for Francesco in his apartment. It smells like Lorenzo still. It goes into a bin of photos of them together. In Croatia, winding through the olive trees. In the alps, under the perpetually purple skies. In New York city, under a marquee with Piero de Medici's name on it.  


Francesco’s eyes crinkle with something implacable as he sifts through the cardboard box and shoves it back into the closet. He talks about the past like it was supposed to be his future, with a strange, recognizable alloy of sadness and a tinge of hope. That, she supposes, is where their differences end.  


Their hearts were both broken by Medicis. But she, at least, knew there was an expiry date involved.  


Giuliano—hideously drunk, violently mean Giuliano—calls one evening while she’s painting her nails on the balcony. Marco is on the phone with investors. He chews her out. He’s a stranger to her in this moment, which should be a relief (there’s no love lost for a stranger) but it’s as if he is a language her tongue has forgotten, her mind has discarded—and it fucking hurts.  


She can remember a time when he was the most important person in her life, and he has devolved into, of all things, a stranger.  


Simonetta hears a woman cooing into the phone. She hangs the phone up on the wall and blocks his number.  


The cream of the crop of Florence is invited to the Medici’s annual Christmas party, and the Vespuccis and Pazzis are no exception. Simonetta arrives at her husband’s side (he has a vice-like grip on her) and Francesco rears his head a fashionable twenty minutes late, smelling like cheap cigarettes and scotch.  


“I’m sure he’ll show,” Simonetta had murmured to Lorenzo, accepting another flute of wine.  


Lorenzo’s blue eyes flickered in that adorably unreceptive way when he was utterly clueless about something. “Who?”  


“Ah.” Her lips form a thin line when the crowds part, and Francesco, as if like magic, appears. “There he is.” She can hear a little sigh of relief exude from the man beside her as she waggles her fingertips at Francesco.  


Toasts are made, carols are sung, and she at last finds Giuliano. He glances between her and her husband (who has yet to leave her side). Giuliano’s chest grows as if he's drawing a breath, his mouth opens as if he’s about to say something, and then his chest falls and his mouth clamps into an unsure mope, his heart nearly beating out of the linen dress shirt he’s wearing.  


She supposes this is all they will ever get: a merciless almost. The second Medici son has always been afraid to rise to the plate.  
But then again—would she had ever left Marco for him? Maybe, if he’d thought to ask (he hadn’t, even when he was losing the one real thing he’d ever known.)  


But then again, probably not.  


Lorenzo is sitting on the floor, head against the wall, a glass of wine in his hand, his legs bent into an askew mathematician’s triangle, when Francesco finds him.  


His eyes are fluttered close, eyelashes fanning over his cheeks. Francesco takes the opportunity to simply glance at him. It’s been months. It’ll be four soon. Is this all they’ll ever get—watching each other’s lives in vignettes like they used to watch each other sleep? Feeling him forget their little slice of ‘us’ like he used to feel him breathe?  


Francesco settles next to him, a finger-breadth of space between them. He never imagined Lorenzo would be someone he missed. (He never imagined he’d become such a pussy, either. But that was neither here nor there.)  


“Don’t you wish you had stayed?” Lorenzo mutters, without opening a single eye.  


“What?”  


“We never really change, the Medici family. That’s what you meant, wasn’t it? All of this,” he gestures aimlessly to the party below.  


This time, Francesco is the one to close his eyes as Lorenzo glances at him. The sound of party-goers lulls him back to last December. Lorenzo is the life of the party. His father’s exquisite heir. He’s showing off again, recounting his days at University, betting on the 10-pound heirloom weighting his pinky finger. 

Francesco rolls his eyes and then Lorenzo pulls him in—“darling, I’m kidding,” whispered sloppily, open-mouthed, against his throat.  


And Francesco was never one for public displays of affection, or dancing, or drinking—but for him he did.  


(And he would’ve probably lived this life for Lorenzo, but Lorenzo never asked him to.)  


“Yeah,” Francesco draws his scotch to his lips. “That’s what I meant.”  
(And, for the record, he can’t thank him enough for that.)


End file.
